Not a Hammer movie but inspired by Hammer (Jimmy Sangster wrote the screenplay), Blood of the Vampire received the X certificate (given to horror movies by the British Board of Censors, during that time, to limit the audience to 16 and above). It boasts yet another evil hunchbacked sidekick and some gore “for adults only…with nerves of steel!”
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I haven’t seen this movie, but I liked the pressbook design. Hotshot pilots and fast flying seemed all the rage in the 1950s cinema. The poor man’s space opera. The “curvaceous” Elena Verdugo, from House of Frankenstein, puts in an appearance. Playing up the eye-candy aspect of female actors in 1950s movies was also another, thankfully abandoned, selling point of that decade’s movies too.
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This is the 1955 re-release pressbook for the 24th serial, Black Arrow, released by Columbia.
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Not a bad double bill to while away a midnight afternoon, given that Voodoo Island can boast Adam West’s first movie appearance.
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Voodoo Island and Pharaoh’s Curse (1957)
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A tidy little budgeter featuring one of Dwight Frye’s last performances. Zucco plays Zucco, which is enough to satisfy any horror fan, and the story is neatly supernatural, pitting nice brother against satanic brother, albeit one of them is dead and into all that occult stuff. Given more money to flesh out the mood and scenery, this would be more highly remembered.
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Of the two horror movies in this double bill, Day the World Ended gets my vote of approval. It helps to see it as a kid (which I did, on television, properly horror-hosted of course), but the movie is still quite palatable if you’re older. With Roger Corman heading Day on the cheap, and Paul Blaisdell fabricating the monster (Marty the Mutant), you couldn’t go wrong. The double billing was financially successful. Pick up Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker by Randy Palmer if you want to read an informative rundown on Day the World Ended’s production and creature creation, as well as information on other Corman and Blaisdell monster movies.
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Day the World Ended
and Phantom From 10,000 Leagues
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At an astounding 32 pages, this T-Men pressbook is a novel's worth of promotion. Striking use of red ink, thriller poster art, and enough publicity articles to choke a theater manager. The tie-ups are plentiful too, from Albolene Face Cream, Ritz Electric Broiler, Emerson Radio, and a T-Men kiddie button kutout. I mean, who uses the word kiddie anymore?
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From the pressbook: ""In my picture," Jones says, "the right-thinking, right-acting, clean-living man always wins out. This man is not a prude. He is not a painfully righteous person. He has plenty of faults, as well as virtues."
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Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation is a real visual treat in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, but the alien design is stellar also. This still remains one of those science fiction movies you should watch at a drive-in or on a big screen, with popcorn and a Coke. It's quintessential 1950s UFO paranoia smartly captured in a quickly moving story. Yes, it has stock footage; yes, it has that odd, semi-documentary approach that some 1950s movies belabored their stories with (The Mole People being the worst example of this), but it's still entertaining and it's still fun.
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One of the last few serials produced by Columbia, the Adventures of Captain Africa: Mighty Jungle Avenger!, were born when Columbia lost the rights to the Phantom, of which this movie was going to be the sequel. A lot of coffee and rewrites later, the costume was altered and the plot revamped, along with the character, to hit the jungle trails once more. Unfortunately, a lot of stock footage was used, along with a few cheater chapters, rendering these adventures not so thrilling. Wikipedia and The Files of Jerry Blake give good rundowns on this serial entry.
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More chills and spills (in the aisles) as Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein top this double bill of horror!
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Dramatic poster art for Outcast of the Islands drew my attention to this pressbook. Looking at it, I find it interesting how some movies played up the exotic woman (here it's Kerima) in the tropical/jungle milieu, until the 1950s, in the horror and adventure genres; one of all image, no substance. Now, of course, there were the femme fatales in noir, and the standout movie starlets, but they stood apart from the pretty-cardboard women with an air of tropical mystery and vexing perfection like Kerima, Acquanetta, and Kathleen Burke (Panther Woman in Island of Lost Souls). Noteworthy in this pressbook is the use of the "MASS audiences and CLASS audiences are flocking to see…" promotion line. I don't recall seeing another blatant (although, let's face it, an inherent presumption for any movie) spelling-out of the makeup of the audience theaters should have expected to get for Outcast.
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